SOA name (was: Re: Dubugging question)

[Bill Moseley]

At 01:00 PM 08/02/00 -0300, DanO wrote:
>Bill,
>Switch to Decaf.

I AM drinking decaf.

>& you you did ask a multiple part question, for which I tried to give you a
>couple of pointers on what I found wrong.
>    You, responded with sarcasim.

Sorry, I didn't think I was responding with sarcasm.

>    So you want to know why they set it up like that, ask them.

I'm not sure asking them why they set it up wrong would be that productive.

>There are "A" records missing, and it seems to me that is the start of your
>problems.

Well, I'm still missing it, sorry.  Here's what you pointed out.  Maybe
someone can explain to what I'm missing.

>Bill, Look at the line I have labeled  A). You didn't include your "A" or
>address reference records with your request for help. I do hope you know
>what an "A" record is.
...
># A) ci.cerritos.ca.us. 3600 NS ns2.ci.cerritos.ca.us.
># A) ci.cerritos.ca.us. 3600 NS noc.cerf.net.

So you are saying those need A records?  ns2.ci.cerritos.ca.us does have an
A record in the zone:

>ns2.ci.cerritos.ca.us. 3600 A 192.6.4.2

And, noc.cerf.net doesn't need an A record in ci.cerritos.ca.us zone.  So,
I'm still missing your point.  Not trying to be a pain, but just trying to
understand what you were pointing out.

You did point out that the zone was missing a dot on the SOA record, which
is why I asked under this subject what problems that would cause under
normal bind/DNS operations.

The only other problems I see with that zone are that the TTLs are all only
one hour, and the machine smtp (listed as the primary master) isn't listed
as one of the zones name servers.  (Which is what prompted this question in
the first place as I could connect to smtp, but not to the listed NS
machines, and thus with a low TTL, I couldn't send mail to them.)

So, my questions are this:

1) What problems are caused by in incorrect "primary master" name setting
in the SOA (caused by forgetting to add the period)?

2) If you weren't planning on changing any IP addresses soon, in general,
is running a TTL of 1h considered too short?

3) If machine smtp is listed as the "primary master" in the SOA and is
indeed returns authoritative answers for the zone, does it seem likely that
leaving it off the list of NS records would be an mistake?  The only reason
I can see doing such a thing would be if smtp was just for internal use and
not advertised.

Thanks,


Bill Moseley
mailto:moseley at hank.org